Golden Hour
Golden Hour is Kacey Musgraves' fourth studio album that was released on March 30, 2018 on MCA Nashville. The album has received widespread acclaim from critics, winning in all four of its nominated categories at the 61st Grammy Awards, including "Album of the Year" & "Best Country Album." The album's first two singles, "Butterflies" and "Space Cowboy", also won awards for "Best Country Solo Performance" and "Best Country Song", respectively. It has also won "Album of the Year" at the 52nd Annual Country Music Association Awards. Background Recording Musgraves wrote and recorded most of the songs from the album throughout 2017. About the writing process, she said: "I have a lot more love songs this time around, and I've never been one to write a love song and really feel it. That probably sounds like the most depressing thing ever. But I'm coming off getting married and being in this golden hour of my personal life, where all these things are finally coming to fruition. I found myself inspired to write about this person and all these things he brought out in me that weren’t there before." Some of the album was recorded in a studio above a horse stable owned by musician Sheryl Crow. Promotion and packaging On March 10, 2018, Musgraves announced the "Oh, What a World: Tour" in support of the album while performing at the Country to Country music festival in London. The first 12 dates of the tour were announced on March 12, 2018, with Musgraves stating on social media that tour dates in other countries would eventually be added. The tour began on October 13 in Oslo, Norway. In February of 2019, she announced a second leg of the tour, titled the "Oh, What a World: Tour II." Musgraves' sister, Kelly Christine Sutton took the cover photo for the album over a two-day photo shoot in and around their hometown of Golden, Texas. Sutton (who also is credited with designing the album's packaging) has previously worked with Musgraves for all of her albums' artwork. About the cover photo, Sutton recalls Kacey "wanted to use this paper fan, and we are usually on the same page with ideas, but I couldn’t picture it. We went out into this wide open field. We needed one with no trees, so there was sky only. Almost immediately after we reviewed the photos, we just knew we had it." Tracklisting #Slow Burn #Lonely Weekend #Butterflies #Oh, What a World #Mother #Love Is a Wild Thing #Space Cowboy #Happy & Sad #Velvet Elvis #Wonder Woman #High Horse #Golden Hour #Rainbow Commercial performance "Golden Hour" debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 and topped Billboard's Top Country Albums chart with 49,000 album-equivalent units—39,000 of that figure being pure album sales in its first week; it marks Musgraves’ third number one on the Top Country Albums chart. It also debuted at number one on the Americana/Folk Albums chart. In the chart week following the 61st Grammy Awards (where "Golden Hour" won "Album of the Year"), the album sold 35,000 copies and climbed to #9 on the Billboard 200 chart. As of February 2019, the album has reached 310,000 in equivalent album units58 and as of April 2019, the album has sold 206,100 copies in the United States. On June 28, 2019, it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units in the United States. In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number six on the official UK Albums chart and at number one on the UK Country Albums chart. It marks Musgraves' first top ten album in the UK. Critical Reception "Golden Hour" received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, the album has an average score of 89, based on 17 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated the album four and a half out of five stars and called it "warm and enveloping, pitched halfway between heartbreak and healing-but (it) lingers in the mind because the songs are so sharp, buttressed by long, loping melodies and Musgraves' affectless soul baring." Writing for The Independent and rating the album a perfect 5 out of 5, Roisin O'Connor states the album is "a reminder that sometimes – often, if you're looking in the right places – life is beautiful." Additionally, it was a Spin "Essential" and of the genre-bending songs on the album, reviewer Katherine St. Asaph calls it "not classicist, but perhaps it might be classic." The album was rated number one by the BBC poll of polls, a compilation of 'best of the year lists' across 35 music reviewers, on a list of the best albums of 2018. It also placed number one in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 2018. Category:Albums